How is OTB different from online chess?

To put it simple, chess is a Board Game originally, chess on a screen for public gaming is something out of the last 25 to 30 years.
I play online chess, because i cant get satisfaction out of 1 or 2 club nights a week.

@AbhirupPal

Yes, very different. With on-line chess you can play whenever you like (unless no opponents show up), at home, with music on, and friends around. With OTB chess there needs to be silence, and there is no pre-move.
And if you play in tournaments or team competition, your results may count for national rating or for FIDE rating, which can put some chess players under pressure.
It is also possible that you need to deal with unpleasant (grease) looking chess boards and with broken chess pieces. I remember that years ago I played at a chess club where it was not unusual that the knights would break in two when you tried to lift them up.
Actually, I have also played at a bigger chess club where once a year they had a material day, where all chess sets where checked by the chess players and the broken pieces would be taken to fix.
With on-line chess you can choose your favorite piece set and all looks smooth and shiny.
And OTB chess of course has the real life social interaction, whereas the Internet is not really the real life 3D experience.

OTB casual and Online chess are the same. OTB tournaments is very different. Most participating players are competitive. Each play all the best to score. Each win is really enjoyed. And the loss lamented.

One way to experience OTB with Lichess is to play correspondence chess, and put the positions on a physical chessboard, and analyze the positions with real world pieces.

@Akbar2thegreat said in #10:
> @AbhirupPal
> It's very very different.
> The chess clock, moving pieces with hand, environment around, 3D board are crucial factors which makes OTB chess unique and better than online chess in terms of competition.
> I last played OTB in January 2020 and I hope I get some again now.
> And if you have really played OTB you should be able to differentiate between online chess and OTB. Or have you forgotten?

I have never been to a tournament. It was just casual games in lunch time at school or with friends elsewhere.

@AbhirupPal said in #15:
> I have never been to a tournament. It was just casual games in lunch time at school or with friends elsewhere.
Oh! Well I have also played many games with friends in school but I have played in number of OTB tournaments as well representing my school.

@jg777 said in #7:
> Hi,
>
> Some players struggle between 2D and 3D. I am one of those who's played so much online chess over the years I "see" 2D rather than 3D, so OTB takes some adjustment for me and I'm often not looking at the board directly but visualizing the positions in my head in 2D when playing. There's also a more tactile and environmental adjustment to OTB than online chess, some like it and others don't. More "serious" chess is played OTB, such as tournament play. I find OTB to be a lot more fun than online chess, but the convenience of online chess can't be denied.
>
> -Jordan

This reminds me of when Nepo said he wasn't sitting at the board during the WC when it was Carlsen's move because he preferred looking at the board in 2D in the lounge! Too much online messes with OTB skills I guess.

A few more differences:as people mentioned, the perception of the board is different. It's odd how different that can be. The local club here plays with pieces bigger than my 'players choice' set. I had to but a new set its size to get used to seeing the whole, slightly bigger, board at a glance. Also, you are there 2 feet from your opponent. You subliminally pick up on his/her thinking due, I believe, to you picking up on where he is looking [I've had opponents tell me that they saw I was considering a move because of my attention there] and, when people think, their vocal chords make slight sounds. So you get feelings of danger at times from all this. You are also playing a person not a position. Sometimes that makes you play more cautiously as losing to a screen isnt as bad as losing to a person. Sometimes your opponent just annoys you by their existence or by sighing, posturing, acting like they are much better than you or acting too 'dainty'. You also play longer games so you need to figure out your coffee intake and bathroom breaks' schedule. If the game next to you is interesting it's a distraction. My last tournament I forgot to punch my clock for this reason and after 5 minutes looked back at my game, saw it ticking, thought it was my move then made an illegal second move!... Overall, OTB feels like real chess and online feels like blitz in the park to me.

#8
It's the opposite for me: I can't see diagonals well in 2D (therefore online) chess; OTB they are clearer to me.

@swimmerBill said in #18:
"my 'players choice' set." Are you referring to the set that was the USCF official standard around 1970? If so, I have that set also, purchased in 1970. Beautiful pieces with a great feel. And it's holding up perfectly more than 50 years later after many hundreds of OTB games.